Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, though...

The canary in the education reform movement's coal mine - Connecticut Post

Ricciotti seems almost giddy at the thought of Rhee's termination, a stance I see as it's own canary. The infighting within and politicization of education is, I worry, just as dangerous as flawed efforts like Rhee's (and others') to implement MBA-style education reform. Sure, measuring teacher quality with - and only with - a standardized test is a sure-fire way to stifle innovative teaching. However, it'd also be dangerous to have a knee-jerk reaction to this and lose sight of the research base that shows the strong causal relationship between teacher qualities and student learning. Measuring teacher qualities and student learning is important, and just because the current regime's methods are blunt and ill-used doesn't mean we should put a halt to our efforts to arrive at a better understanding of how education works.